Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

NOTEBOOK “ξ”

RUEDORFFER, BASIC FEATURESOF CONTEMPORARY WORLD POLITICS

J. J. Ruedorffer , Basic Features of Contemporary World Politics, Berlin, 1914 (xiii + 252 pp.)

(The preface is datedOctober 1913.)

A pretentious book by a diplomat, who wraps up the imperialist aspirations of the German bourgeoisie in florid phrases. The chief theme is the struggle between national and cosmopolitan tendencies.

His sociological and philosophical pretensions = the stupidest neo-Kantian blather about the nation as an individual, comparisons with a forest (repeated dozens of times), about divinity and such like nonsense.

Actually, his is a topical theme, but it is wrapped up in catch-phrases about Aristotle’s “entelechy”, etc.

To complete her plans in Africa (the Cape-Cairo railway), Great Britain “now only needs to settle her differences with Germany and Belgium” (94)....

Germany has been put in a difficult position—deprived of possibilities for expansion (Asia for Russia, North Africa for France and Italy), hemmed in on both sides; has come too late (the colonies are taken) ((§7, Chapter 2, p. 101 et seq.)).

On the Moroccan issue she has had to give way to France (105).

“The fate of German world policy will be decided on the continent” (107).... “It is possible, perhaps, to imagine a German world policy without naval superiority, but certainly not without superiority on land” (ibidem).

(Victory on the continent of Europe is the key to everything for Germany.)

Morocco ... “retreat” (108): we had to retreat somewhat....

“This chapter of German world policy illustrates best of all the peculiarity of the Reich’s international position, its limited possibilities for expansion, the link between world and continental policy, the complex factors with which a German world policy has to reckon” (109)....

German nationalism, he says, is still young, ...“the manners of a parvenu” (112).

In America, thepeople, the nation, is only just taking shape (especially with Latin and Slav emigration).

“Financially, Argentina can be regarded as a colony controlled by the London Stock Exchange” (133).... The South American states “at the present time are, and probably will be for a long time to come, the object and not the subject of world politics” (131)....

“Present-day Japan is suffering from her successes” (137)—cannot cope with her colonies, has not built up strength, etc.... (Japan lacks a religious foundation: 138) ((what an idiot!!))....

The cosmopolitan tendency—prattle about catholicism ... about the cultural ideal....

“Capitaland its power....

“The interweaving of the material interests of the civilised world, the emergence of a unitary world economy, is one of the basic facts of modern politics” (159)....

The struggle for “majority shareholding”[2](161).... “All economic enterprises of immediate political importance, for example, railways, canal companies, etc., are today national in character even if their capital is international in its origin or form” (161)....

International law and international arbitration? “On the whole, the instrument of arbitration serves only to prevent the outbreak of undesired wars, which can arise from unforeseen incidents and do not affect vital interests of the nation; but nowhere yet have vital questions of the nation been settled by arbitration or a desired war been prevented with its help” (167)....

International socialism?(§5, Chapter 3, Part I, p. 172 et seq.).

“A Franco-Italian antagonism over hegemony [in the Mediterranean and Africa] seems to be taking shape” (211)....

...“So long as Russia has little difficulty in expanding in Mongolia and Persia, her urge for expansion will not be directed against Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Constantinople” (211)....

In general, wars can now be waged only in cases of “need” (218), but what does this mean?

“It is not true that though the modern Great Powers arm, they do not make use of their arms” (219).—Their armaments enter into “calculations”, they are taken into account in diplomatic negotiations, in exerting “pressure”, etc., etc

There are two reasons for this: the greater “thriftiness” in France and the smaller demand for money for the needs of the economy.

The Germans have been wrongly blamed for not using the Moroccan incident so as to seize the “opportunity”— “to keep Spain on anti-French lines” (236)....

[1]See present edition, Vol. 21, p. 244.—Ed.

[2]Ibid.—Ed.

[3]See present edition, Vol. 21, p. 244.—Ed.

[4]Ibid—Ed.

[5]Ibid—Ed.